Brandon woke up the next morning to his legs being pulled rather hard. He groaned, dug his face out of the pillow, and looked down at his feet to find Ben trying to drag him out of bed.

Benedict Malcolm Thomas Barrett. The prankster. His best friend.

“Wake up, sleepyhead.” The deep baritone rang in his ears as Ben grabbed his ankles and used all his force to pull his legs. As lanky as he was, Ben hid surprising strength in his lean physique, thanks to his talent for fencing and archery. Brandon held on to the mattress, stopping himself in time from being dragged down from the bed.

“Where did you come from?” He groaned again and tried to kick him away but missed. Ben released his legs, letting them land on the mattress with a thud. Brandon winced, flinging a kick in the air again.

“I came in through that doorway.” Ben pointed at the entrance to the room. Then he jumped onto the mattress and the old, rickety bed bounced. “Wake up. We’ll go riding.”

“It’s our last weekend home,” Brandon mumbled. “Feck off and let me sleep.”

“I spent an hour at the stables this morning and you’re still in bed.” He kicked his leg, then punched him in the arm. “You’ll never stop being a dosser, will ya?”

No longer able to put up with the early morning assault, Brandon finally rolled over and opened his eyes.

“What’s the time?” he grumbled.

“About ten-thirty.”

“What?” He sprang up, turning to look at the bedside clock. It was indeed half-past ten.

“Holy cow! Why did no one wake me up?”

“Everyone’s busy downstairs.” Ben leaned back and put a foot up on a knee. “The restaurant’s teeming.”

“Is Izzi here?” he asked. It was Saturday and she did not have school. He hoped she would be at the restaurant helping his mother, or wandering about his family barn and engaging with the horses. Ever since she arrived in the town, she had shown more interest in the animals than in the people. He could see why. Animals did not judge.

“Jeez. You see me after a week and all you can think of is Izzi.” Ben picked up Brandon’s car key and started swinging it around on a finger. “You really are smitten, aren’t ye?”

Brandon ignored his comment and sank back against the pillows, still thinking of how one word had played in her mind yesterday. He knew that she blamed everyone for what happened to her and it was not entirely without reason. They indeed had done too little to keep her safe.

“What’s the matter?” Ben asked, suddenly concerned. “Is something wrong?”

Brandon looked at his friend and tried to smile. Ben was an image of his father, standing at six feet and two inches, with medium-long raven hair, and eyes so dark that it was hard to tell the pupil and the iris apart. Like Brandon, he also had a cleft in his chin and loved horses. But unlike him, Ben was dry and sarcastic and could play the drums and the piano.

All his life, Ben had maintained a fine balance between his Irish and English identities. He switched accents with surprising ease, knew England as well as he knew Ireland, and laughed at both Irish and British jokes. Like his English mother, he also held dual citizenship.

“No. Not really.” Brandon yawned, stretching his arms. “We were talking, and it went the wrong way… I think she misunderstood. Became upset, perhaps. I don’t know. I can barely understand her now.”

“You aren’t alone.” Ben returned the key to its place. “I don’t think I understand her, either. But we’d have to be in her shoes to really understand her feelings.” He sighed, sitting upright. “Which I never want to be, quite honestly.”

Bending his knees, Ben drew his legs close to his chest. “Remember this time six months ago? I nearly lost my only sister…”

Brandon pulled him into a hug. Isabel was not Ben’s biological sister. She was his first cousin, the daughter of his mother’s younger sister. Emily and her sister had never been on the best terms, ever since their parents separated when they were still little girls. Emily met Thomas Barrett during her time at the University of Cambridge and moved to settle in Ireland after finishing her postgraduate research programme. Isabel was born and raised in London, and although the relationship between the two families was strained, she was always a daughter to Thomas and Emily and a much-adored younger sister to Ben, spending every holiday with the Barretts since she was a child.

Ben’s parents were vaguely aware of the volatile nature of her parents and the problems within the family but had no inkling of the abuse until that night when the police got intimation from her neighbours and raided the house to find her in the cold, dark attic. Gagged, starved, and nearly unconscious, deep, bloody wounds all over her body, two ribs and a finger broken. That night changed everything.

A probe revealed years of burgeoning violence. Her parents were sentenced to life. Despite the best efforts of the child protection committee, the police and the prosecution hounded her until she could no longer bear the shame and humiliation and reached for a kitchen knife. Ben had found her on her bedroom floor at the Barrett residence in Wimbledon, bleeding away. She spent a week in hospital, battling exsanguination, following which Thomas and Emily adopted her and brought her to Sligo, in an attempt to remove her from her murky reality and give her a fresh start.

“I hated myself for not being able to help her,” Ben said. “We were close, right? I spoke to her every day. How could I not have known why she never showed us her room or why raised voices scared her or why she always trembled around her parents or why she never wanted to go back whenever she was with us?”

“You saved her.” Brandon reminded him. “It would’ve been too late if you hadn’t found her in time.”

“Yes. And she didn’t speak to me for… three weeks?” He pulled back, running his fingers through his lustrous mane to push it back. “She acted like I had done something wrong by saving her.”

“She doesn’t see it now but one day, she will appreciate life again. And then she’ll realise what you had done for her.”

“You believe that?” Ben frowned at him. “You believe she’ll appreciate life again?”

“She will. I know it.” Brandon slid an arm around his shoulders. “Give her time. She needs to heal.”

“I doubt if she’ll ever heal completely. Who can ever forget horrors like that? Not Izzi. She doesn’t forget anything.”

He laughed wryly. “Talk about Mum and Dad having a patient right at home. Nice case study.”

“Don’t say that.” He squeezed his shoulder. “Imagine how hard it must’ve been for them to watch Izzi’s world falling apart right when your dream was coming true. Emily was shattered and yet she had to put on a brave face for your sake.”

Brandon sighed. “She wouldn’t even have made the little progress that she has if your parents had not removed her from London and brought her here. At least she knows she’s safe here. That’s what she needs. Safety. Love. The home that she never had.”

Ben’s parents had let her keep her existing surname because they thought she was too old for an identity crisis. They loved her, cared about her. But Isabel’s wounds were her own. No one could break her walls.

“Do you… do you think she does alright at school?” Brandon asked quietly, not sure if they should be having that conversation anymore. Ben glanced at him.

“She’s the best student in the school’s history.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Brandon said. “I don’t think she’s comfortable there, with everyone treating her like she landed from another planet. I mean, she doesn’t say anything, but…”

Ben shrugged. “She doesn’t tell us anything, either. But it will be stupid to expect her to be comfortable in the middle of hundreds of strangers who taunt her for being the weird girl who barely talks. I’m glad no one knows her history in this town.” He put his head down where his knees were connected and sighed. “We just want her to get through Leaving Cert. And she will, as valedictorian, no less.”

Brandon nodded. From a prestigious private academy in London to a small-town school in an Irish county, the move was definitely extreme. They could not tell if Isabel found it difficult at all. She was numb. Life was only a routine to her now.

“You know what?” Brandon smiled. “I never told you, but you’re very strong, just like Izzi. If I were you, I wouldn’t have been able to go through this whole boyband thing while my sister’s life was upside down.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how you did it, but it was very brave of you.”

“I wasn’t brave, Brandy,” Ben snickered. “I was sitting on the kerb crying for god knows how long until you found me. I’m glad you were there, you know. I couldn’t let my parents or anyone else see me in that state. And we had a production meeting the next day.”

Brandon remembered comforting him until he had regained some of his composure before taking him home. It had been difficult for them to learn to be a boyband during the tough time. Ben refused to be the second lead when his name was suggested. He pushed Mark forward, even Kyle. But their manager and their producer thought Ben’s voice was the best in the band after that of Brandon’s, effortless and mellifluous.

But they survived. Come Monday and they’d be on TV again, talking about themselves, their childhood, their country, and their upcoming album. And then they would be off to Mexico to film a music video.

“When did you return?” Brandon asked, changing the conversation.

“Last night,” Ben answered. “Nathan wanted to drive me home but I took the train.”

“It was good?”

Ben lifted his head and smiled. “Yes. Spent three days with him and his family in Malahide.” He leaned back in bed, putting his hands behind his head. “Beat him on the field three times. Ha ha. He thought I’d be shite at football.”

Nathan Byrne was their fifth bandmate, pale blonde with blue eyes and terrible teeth, and obsessed with football. He was from Dublin and had been selected through the audition. The five of them had got along like a house on fire from the first day, turning into a close-knit family on the road. They spent every minute together, goofing around, being silly, discussing girls, going shopping, playing football, and singing. And drinking vodka and Red Bull. Isabel’s history was known to Kyle, Mark, and Nathan but they had an unspoken pact to never talk about it.

“Good for you.” Brandon smiled. “He called me the other day to ask why the rest of us weren’t coming down too.”

“It would have been fun. But then, everyone wants to be home the few days off we get.” He looked into his eyes, his smile disappearing. “I’ll be honest, I had not expected you to stand by Izzi like a rock through all this.”

Brandon’s heart sank. “Why not?” 

“You’re the popular guy. You chase girls. Girls chase you. You went out with most of those girls who threw themselves at you after we did Grease. And now with Pentoniac, the whole world is lusting after you.” Ben looked at him again, his eyes turning a shade darker. “My sister isn’t like other girls.”

“And I love her because she’s not like other girls.” He heaved a deep sigh. “You’ve often been more of a brother to me than my own brothers, I’m not ashamed to admit that. We grew up together, your family is as dear to me as my own.” Brandon closed his eyes that were quickly welling up. “Is this how well you know me?”

“Don’t get me wrong, big boy,” Ben murmured. “It’s been hard for all of us. There’s a reason we’re cautious.”

“I did not plan this, you know. I have no idea how and when it happened but she’s everything I ever wanted and while you were watching your sister battle for life in a glass cabin, I was struggling to not entertain the possibility that the first and only girl I ever fell in love with was going to die and leave me devastated.”

He dropped his head against the wall behind him, his voice breaking. “What would I do if that did happen?” he rasped. “What would you do?”

Ben’s hand came to rest on his shoulder. “I don’t want to think of it,” he answered. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t doubting you. It’s just that—”

“I know.” He blinked back the emotions. “I only want to make her happy.”

“Oh, you do. It’s kind of hard to unsee it.” Ben shook his head with a barely audible chuckle. “It’s obvious she carries a torch for you too, because the only times her pale, blank face lights up is when she catches sight of you or when you ogle her or when she hears you sing. And I thought she didn’t even like pop.”

Ben snickered again. “Sister and best friend, huh? Who’d have thought?”

Brandon swallowed hard. “I’m not playing with her, I swear.” He reached over to touch his shoulder. “You can trust me. I’ll keep her safe.”

Ben nodded slowly, hugging him again. “I always trust you. And I know, so does Izzi.”

“You never answered my question,” Brandon said. 

“No, she’s not here.” Ben rolled his eyes. “Remember when we were fifteen and I needed your help with my maths assignment? I said something like, ‘I’ll buy you lunch, I’ll laugh at all your stupid jokes, I’ll be the godfather for your children…’”

He snorted. “I was only messing with ya, but come to think of it.” His eyes sparkled. “I might actually have to be the godfather for your children. You know, my future nieces and nephews.”

“You bastard—”

Ben jumped out of bed, Brandon in hot pursuit.